A reliable visual inspection method for vulnerability assessment of hyperstatic structures using fuzzy logic analysis

Fuzzy logic applied to the visual inspection of existing buildings has been proposed in relation to simple structures. Isostatic structures are characterized by a unique and known collapse mechanism, which does not vary with geometry or load change. In this paper we apply fuzzy logic to visual inspection for complex structures such as hyperstatic ones in which the collapse mechanism depends not only on the geometry but also on the size and disposition of loads. The goal of this paper is to give relevant weight, in the fuzzy analysis, not only to the single expression of degradation, due to its localization within the element, but also to the structural element itself by assigning a different resistance to the various elements. The underlying aim of the proposed method is to manage, evaluate, and process all the information coming from visual inspections in order to realize a management information system for the evaluation of the safety level of even complex structures

Synthesis of Artificial Magnetic Conductors Using Structure-Based Evolutionary Design

An evolutionary programming approach, the so-called structure based evolutionary design, is applied to the synthesis of planar periodic electronic band gap in order to obtain an artificial magnetic conductor surface. We show that this strategy, in conjunction with a flexible aperture-oriented approach, allows for obtaining new and effective structures. This almost unique ability is exploited to obtain an artificial magnetic conductor periodic surface with a bandwidth larger than the most popular surfaces known so far

Aperture oriented approach to the analysis of artificial magnetic conductors and first-order circuit model validation

A MoM analysis procedure for Artificial Magnetic Conductors, using equivalent magnetic currents is presented, and its advantages discussed for both patch-type and aperture-type AMC.A quite accurate equivalent circuit has been extracted from our MoM results, using a curve-fitting procedure

Analysis and optimization of elliptic ridged waveguide with FDFD technique and PSO Algorithm

A new design technique for elliptic ridged and sectoral waveguides is presented. The PSO technique has been employed, using FDFD to compute the propagation data of the guide. Conflicting requirements of wide bandwidth and high power handling capability are taken both into account with a suitable objective function

FDFD on ridged elliptical waveguides

We present a frequency domain finite difference approach in curvilinear coordinates to the computation of the modes of elliptical ridged waveguides. The use of a elliptical mesh allows to avoid staircase approximations of the boundary, providing a very effective and accurate procedure

Analysis of microstrip coupled lines over a perfect magnetic conductor

This paper presents the analysis of coupled microstrip lines over a perfect magnetic conductor (PMC) ground plane, in order to find an efficient configuration for feeding a microstrip patch antenna over an AMC groundplan